


Tip of the Tongue

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Language, Languages and Linguistics, noncanonical with the events of FE6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: Lyn is an adventurer after the events of FE7. Florina finds her reasons to follow her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A very big thank you to my beta reader, who cheered me on.

Florina sometimes mumbles in her sleep; quick little words that sound full of fricatives, the buzz of consonants spoken with a partially closed mouth. Though she is sleeping under the stars upon the warm grasses of the plains, while slumbering she speaks the language of the icy north.  
Lyn can't remember all the words her parents taught her. The languages she has just tangle; when she tries full sentences of Lorca words, other ones from the tongues of Bern sneak in and shove, pushing down on old memories. She sighs, and rests her face in the dip of Florina's shoulder, her arms around her waist. Florina only grumbles softly into the blanket's curl, pugnacious at rest.  
A lady without a kingdom suits Lyn just fine; Hector knows how to tend it better than she can, and so she visits, using funds from the treasury to give herself an income. It's never too much, and never begrudged besides – just enough for there and back again, by safe passage. The world is wide and deep and full, and expanded so much once she left the plains that it feels odd to not constantly be on the march. Florina asked to be by her side; not at first but as a growing eventuality. They kept running into each other, following in circular ebbs to discover where the other went after they parted. After a while it just made sense.

Upon their travels, whenever they find themselves in cute inns or seaside cottages, Florina bumps into her, half-asleep, especially when they're visiting brand new places. The chill of the tile doesn't seem to wake her up by much; the spark of Lyn's laugh makes her whisper a soft kind of apology as she clutches a fist of Lyn's shirt, attempting to nap standing up among the scents of the breakfast table. Peeling her away, Lyn gives her a proper hug, bending to kiss the top of her curly head and scent the lavender water she dabs behind her ears.  
"I can't remember," Lyn admits one night, "It gets harder when I'm the only one."  
Florina's face falls, and stays that way for an hour, frown deepening with thought.  
"Teach me," she says, "I'll listen."  
Lyn doesn't know where to begin, how she'd talk about most of the outside world if she'd even try. The combs on the dresser are her mother's, and that comes easily, but the pattern on her shirt has a name that is the thing itself, and it feels like walking uphill just to measure out each sentence.  
She picks up a comb.

 

\----

As Lyn tries to teach Florina, so Florina teaches Lyn the Ilian tongue; Florina reaches to Lyn's mouth with her fingers, shaping it gently.  
"You leave your mouth open too wide," she says, staring at it without actually looking at her eyes, "Speak from here."  
She prods a place quickly on the hinge of Lyn's jaw with a fingertip, before her arm pulls back in a hasty retreat. Lyn pronounces the word, and Florina's hands creep up to cup her face, thumbs on her cheeks, fingers curling.  
"Again," Florina says, "Please."  
Lyn can't say no. Florina's hands on her face make her voice tight and a little choked up; she speaks the word slowly and laconically like a rogue trying to mimic Florina's gentle request. Please.  
"Yes," Florina says, "like that."  
Florina brings her mouth to Lyn's, speaking the word over again. Please.  
Lyn can only tuck her own arms around her, Florina's weight so comfortable in her lap that it is as if she belongs there. She mumbles the word back, runs her fingertips daringly up Florina's sides and gets not a Please in return but a soft Oh.

Florina leans, enthusiastic and needy as she grabs at Lyn's collar, pressing against her as though she'd enjoy nothing more than to fall into her, pull her lover's arms around herself and nestle just by her heart.  
Instead, they tip over, laughing in a mess.  
“I love you,” Florina says, and her voice is calm, soft with shyness but not unsteady; words that are meant for Lyn's ears alone. Her hands are on Lyn's face again, pulling her jaw upward to meet her kiss. Her hand reaches, slides up the angle of Lyn's wrist and pools in the dip of her palm, spreading to grip tight around Lyn's knuckles. The floor is fairly cold, the beads of Lyn's hairpiece digging into her scalp as she angles her head against the ground, but all around her is Florina's cloud of thick hair, her body's weight and strong thighs holding on instinctually to Lyn's waist. It's not so hard for Lyn to support her, either; though since she's sitting on top with elbows framing Lyn's face, there's not such a great need.  
Lyn's arm curls to put on the arc of Florina's spine, slipping up to the dip of her shoulders as they kiss. It's not so unusual for them to share affection, but not like this, rampant on a kitchen floor against the tile. As she turns her head just to breathe Florina kisses the bridge of her nose, the angle of it where once broken, it re-healed.

“Are you well?” Lyn asks, half a joke. Florina seems to settle, lifting her head to look askance as Lyn's fingertips draw a pattern all the way up from the crook of her knee to the angle of her hip; Lyn gives her a little bump of the forehead as her hand rests lightly upon Florina's thigh.  
“I'm okay,” Florina says, “Really. I mean it.”  
Lyn puts a peck of a kiss on Florina's mouth, her eyebrow lifting silently in a prompt to continue.  
“Being with you, seeing things from the ground… I thought that watching from up above with Huey was enough. But although I see the big picture… It's the little things I miss.”  
“Little...”  
“I'm glad to be with you,” she says, so earnest that Lyn can only be quiet.  
Florina stops talking for a moment, her face close enough that it isn't so hard to just catch the corner of her mouth as she turns her head, and Lyn does.  
“I like you,” she says.  
“Thanks.”  
Lyn winces; her words too blunt but still heartfelt.  
“I meant to say something better than that-”  
“No,” Florina says, “That’s okay. Just try it again… Please?”


End file.
